John V. daGraca

Deputy Director, Citrus Center and Weslaco Center, Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University, Weslaco, TX 78599

Email: WESLACOPO.jdagraca@taexgw.tamu.edu
Phone: 956-968-2132
Fax: 956-969-0649

Dr. daGraca is an Adjunct Member of the Graduate Faculty of TAMU. He can serve as a Co-chair or Member on Graduate Student Advising Committees of TAMU students, including the Cooperative Ph.D. in Horticulture between TAMU and TAMUK.

Dr. John daGraca was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. After graduating from high school there in 1967 he studied at University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, obtaining his BS Agriculture (major Plant Pathology) in 1971 and MS Agriculture in 1975. He worked at the Citrus & Subtropical Fruit Research Institute, Nelspuit, South Africa from 1974 to 1979, and then took a lecturing position at the University of Natal. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1981. During the 20 years at this university he was promoted to senior lecturer (1981), associate professor (1991) and full professor (1998), and spent sabbaticals in Florida (1986-87), Israel (1990), Spain (1993) and Texas (1994-95). In June 1999 he was appointed Deputy Center Director in Weslaco.

Dr. daGraca's primary area of research has been in citrus virology. He was involved in research isolating and characterizing citrus psorosis and citrus vein enation viruses, and the use of mild tristeza virus isolates in cross protection programs and citrus viroids as tree dwarfing agents. He was involved in the citrus virus indexing program in South Africa, and helped in the early stages of the Texas budwood program. He also conducted some research on avocado sunblotch virus, and supervised graduate student projects on the epidemiology of viruses of capsicums and cucurbits.

"The future of any discipline is dependent on the training of students. While I can guide them in specific areas of virology, with their young minds and their exposure to developments in other fields that they are studying, they can bring fresh ideas to research programs. I encourage students to publish their research findings and to present at conferences, both for their own career development and for disseminating information to the scientific community."

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

daGraca, JV (1991) Citrus greening disease. Ann.Rev.Phytopathol. 29:109-136

daGraca, JV and SB Maharaj (1991) Citrus vein enation, a possible luteovirus. Proc.11th Conf.IOCV :391-394

daGraca, JV, RF Lee, P Moreno, EL Civerolo and KS Derrick (1991) Comparison of isolates of citrus ringspot, psorosis and other viruslike agents of citrus. Pl.Dis. 75:613-616

van Vuuren, SP, RP Collins and JV daGraca (1993) Evaluation of citrus tristeza virus isolates for cross protection of grapefruit in South Africa. Pl.Dis. 77:24-28

van Vuuren, SP and JV daGraca Evaluation of graft-transmissible isolates derived from dwarfed citrus trees as dwarfing agents. Pl.Dis. (in press)

Christianson, CC and JV daGraca Detection of citrus vein enation virus using cereal yellow dwarf virus ELISA kits. Proc.14th Conf.IOCV (in press)